Iraq crisis: SAS may be sent in to help army

As ISIS insurgents threaten to take Baghdad, Britain and US mull options -
including air strikes and the deployment of the SAS

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the situation in Iraq prior to departing the White House in WashingtonPhoto: KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS

By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent, and Peter Foster in Washington

10:29PM BST 13 Jun 2014

Britain and America are weighing up military options in Iraq ranging from air strikes to the deployment of the SAS as jihadist fighters allied to remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime threatened to engulf Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

At the White House, President Barack Obama said he would “review options” over the weekend to counter the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an ultra-violent offshoot of al-Qaeda that has seized much of the north and west of Iraq - although he said there would be no “boots on the ground”.

Meanwhile in London William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain was considering its options. While also ruling out direct intervention by British troops, he said Britain was “looking urgently at other ways to help, for example with counter-terrorism expertise” - which would almost certainly mean advisers from British Special Forces such as the SAS and intelligence agencies including MI6.

At a press conference in London alongside the US secretary of state, John Kerry, Mr Hague said Britain could advise the Iraqi security forces on how to counter ISIS advances. “Work is under way on that now and we will continue to liaise closely with our United States allies in particular on that,” he said.

The Foreign Secretary gave no details, but in Libya in 2011, SAS units were sent to advise rebels despite David Cameron’s promise then that there would be no “British boots on the ground”.

The US president made clear in his statement that he thought the crisis was primarily one for Iraq’s neighbours to deal with. But he also made clear he felt American interests were at stake.

“This is a regional problem, and it is going to be a long-term problem,” he said. “What we’re going to have to do is combine selective actions by our military to make sure that we’re going after terrorists who could harm our personnel overseas or eventually hit the homeland.”

Mr Obama spoke as the Iraqi government forces launched air attacks on some ISIS-held positions including in Tikrit, captured on Wednesday, where a mosque was among buildings targeted by a helicopter gunship, according to local officials.

But despite the counter-attack, Islamist rebels on Friday seized two more towns just 60 miles to the north of Baghdad. Hundreds of American workers were being airlifted from a base north of the capital.

The Foreign Office said it had no immediate plans for a formal evacuation but added that it knew of a small number of British nationals now in areas under ISIS control. “We are closely monitoring the situation and keeping it under review,” a spokesman said.

Mr Obama ordered American troops to be withdrawn from Iraq in 2011 after failing to negotiate a deal to keep some there in an advisory capacity. He was openly critical of the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and the Iraqi armed forces for their failure to hold the country together in the two and a half years since, despite the “extraordinary sacrifices” American troops had made.

He pointed to the failure of Iraqi troops, on which so much money and training had been lavished, to stand by their posts in the face of far smaller militant forces, and implied that American assistance would be conditional on Mr Maliki conceding to international pressure over the way he runs the country.

“We’re not going to allow ourselves to be dragged back into a situation in which, while we’re there we’re keeping a lid on things, and after enormous sacrifices by us, after we’re not there, people start acting in ways that are not conducive to the long-term stability and prosperity of the country,” he said.

Officials said the options Mr Obama’s national security advisers were weighing up included airstrikes using either drones or manned aircraft, along with stepping up surveillance operations.

On both sides of the Atlantic, officials are aware of the risk in involving the West once more in a complex and difficult war, this time nakedly sectarian. ISIS are alleged to have killed Shia soldiers on the roadsides of northern Iraq and are claiming to be about to move on Karbala and Najaf - holy Shia cities in the south.

ISIS followers also threatened that any American drone strikes against them would be met with “more 9/11s”.